


Heroes

by Sapphy, SapphyWatchesYouSleep (Sapphy)



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Declarations Of Love, Don't Cross Tasha, Fluff, I'll stop adding tags now, Kidnapping, M/M, Tony's childhood was bleak, and also all the fangirls, and boys, and his team, and others - Freeform, but now he has bruce, mentions of past violence, natasha is a bamf, we don't discriminate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-13
Updated: 2012-08-13
Packaged: 2017-11-12 02:27:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/485669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphy/pseuds/Sapphy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphy/pseuds/SapphyWatchesYouSleep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha wants to make sure Bruce understands how important Tony is</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heroes

**Author's Note:**

> Just a tiny bit of fluff. I hope you enjoy.

It’s Natasha who notices, of course, Natasha who sees him looking.

“He was my hero, when I was a kid,” she says, voice low, eyes trained on where Tony is throwing what looks like the entire contents of the salad draw into the smoothie maker.

Bruce doesn’t speak, just waits for her to explain herself, sure that she will. And if she won’t, then not even the Other Guy, who is the only person on earth Natasha fears, will tear the information from her. She’s very good at her job.

“I was just a kid when they took me,” she says, voice low. “I told you that, back in Kolkata. It’s the only way to make an ordinary person into someone like me. Some people are born to it, need next to no training, but for most people, the only way is to start young.

“They used to make us re-enact kidnappings, not just to learn to escape but to learn fear and to practise using a foreign tongue in stressful situations. When we were kids, the kidnappings and abductions we re-enacted were those of children. So much worse than the adult ones.”

Bruce wishes there were anything he could say that wouldn’t just sound trite.

“We had to re-enact the kidnapping perfectly. If the victim cried, we had to cry. If they stayed silent, we stayed silent. In my first five years at the academy, before they moved me onto the teenage crimes, I only once got to hurt my kidnappers. The kidnapping I was re-enacting was Tony’s. His first.”

Bruce’s usual skill for keeping his face blank obviously fails him because Natasha gives him a small sad smile.

“His dad was one of the richest men on the planet, and one of the most powerful. And you can imagine how good Tony was at doing as he was told and not running of alone.” Bruce can, and it’s breaking his heart.

“He’d been taken four times by his fifteenth birthday. After that he took over his own security and no one managed again until Afghanistan.

“That first time, he was five. By the time the police found him, the kidnappers had beaten him unconscious. He’d managed to get himself free, break one of the guards noses and get as far as the street before they stopped him. At five. I couldn’t do it successfully until I was nine.

“In all the years I was with the service, that scenario was the closest I ever got to freedom or rebellion, and Tony gave that too me. So like I said, he was my hero.”

She moved away, her feet making no noise against the stone of the floor.

Tony looked up from smoothie maker. “What were you two whispering about?” he asked, cheerfully.

“I think that was ‘Tash warning me that if I hurt you, she’ll kill me,” Bruce said, reeling slightly at the fact that it hadn’t involved either knives or death threats. She’s probably leaving that to Clint, he though morosely.

“Why would she do that?” Tony asked, though of course he knew the answer. He was Tony Stark. And currently drinking something that looked suspiciously like primordial ooze.

Out of the frying pan into the fire, Bruce thought, and said, “Because I’m in love with you.”

Tony’s grin, and the subsequent kiss, were more than enough to make up for death threats from his teammates, even if the kiss did taste like pond slime.


End file.
